Sir VG's Computer Project 2006

Cooling? Well, the large Lian Li cases are pretty good with that, plus they have a ton of 5-1/4" bays, and the Cooler Master Stacker 830 is loaded with bays too. IIRC, it also has an insane amount of spaces for fans. Since I've never set up a water-cooled machine, I'll leave that for someone else.

If you really want to see a performance boost rather than going from IDE to SATA 1.5gbs, go up to SATA 3.0gbs but you need a MB compliant with that. SATA drives are far simpler to install and except for making one your boot drive (like my soon to arrive 74GB Raptor), they take 1 or 2 minutes to install.

That way you get faster data transfers without having to resort to a 10k drive. Do you sleep in the same room as this machine? Because a load of drives, even water cooloed will make a bunch of noise.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'd say go with the x1300, as the 7300GS is too pricey for what you're getting when compared to ATI's solution. Either one is fine, especially if you don't like ATI's driver support.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

If you're going to use this computer to see Blu-Ray or HD-DVDs, I suggest you wait. Videocards need a certain physical HDCP cheap on them, and as of yet, none have it. You wouldn't be able to watch copyrighted flicks.

BTW, you would also need a compliant monitor.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

It's not just Blu-Ray and HD-DVD that will use H.264, eventually both legal and illegal downloadable videos will use H.264 instead of the standard DivX or Xvid to produce DVD quality video at a much smaller size. Currently without H.264 acceleration, a top of the line system can barely decode high definition H.264, it wastes CPU cycles and power to decode H.264 the old fashined way when your video card can help (it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect to have H.264 decoding on a video card lighten the load by well over half of what your CPU normally takes on).

Oh, I know this already. The benefits that it brings are great, and it allows less capable systems the ability to play HD videos without whoring system resources. The thing is, even if it's encoded with H.264 without the HDCP chip on the video card and in the monitor, you won't be able to watch copyrighted HD streams since they'll be downgraded to 480p automatically.

Not a problem if you don't intend on watching them in the first place, but it's something to keep in mind.

VG, don't worry about the consoles. When they come around, just use component since you only need the HDCP crap for the BR movies.

So what have we got so far?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

VG, why don't you just get 2 500GB 3.0 Gb/s drives? Not only would you get an insane speed boost to your transfer/read/write rates but you'd reduce the amount of physical space the drives take up.

And the heat output from those babies is pretty minimal.

I was speaking idiomatically.

540p sound highly unlikely considering that they'd likely adopt one resolution that can be displayed across the board should the player find that the TV isn't HDCP compliant, or vice versa. It's as simple as this:

HDCP on both ends of the copyrighted data? It'll be output in whatever HD resolution it was set to be.

Lack of HDCP compliance on either the player end or monitor will cause it to default to standard DVD resolution. Throwing in 540p would just complicate things.

How ya doing, buddy?

Actually, he'd save quite a bit by buying an Antec P180. It's a midtower, but it's a tad taller than typical cases in that range. It's got a similar setup, costs less, it's interior is made of steel which reduces the amount of vibration noise from drives within the case. Throw in the noise reducing aluminum panels (with sound dampening plastic in between) on the sides, speed controlled 120mm fans all around, isolated PSU wind tunnel, rubber grommets for reduced drive vibration in all HDD bays and a copious amount of rails and you've got one hell of a case.

Here's the official site:

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=81800

SilentPCReview did an extensive review of the case, and even recorded several setups, first in another case and then in the P180. The difference is amazing and this is with stock fans, not Nexus ones. Oh and it runs pretty damn cool, thanks to the large, silent fans and excellent airflow throughout the case.

FELIPE NO